Motherhood, Craftiness & Other Lovely Things

thrifty

If you’ve been to Target lately, you might have noticed these little guys hanging around in the Dollar Spot.

(Hanging… get it? I’m hilarious.)

My friend sent me a picture about a month ago that sparked some inspiration in my little creative mind parts. “Why not add some flowers to that little Joy sign at Target?” she says. And I says back, “Why, yes, I think I shall!”

I bought a few of those and added some felt flower flair to them (naaaaaaturally) and a few touches of Christmas cheer — here’s how the first batch turned out:

After posting it to Facebook and asking my local friends if they’d be interested in them, I somehow ended the night with more orders and was planning my shopping list to get more supplies. WUT. That was totally unexpected!

For the next batch, I had Justin cut and stain some wood and we bought some copper wire from the hardware store to see if I could do it myself. It took practice, but I think I’m getting better at all that bendy business.

Pro tip: It helps to watch uber cheesy Hallmark movies as you are crafting. I think I watched like 15 over the course of a week when I was making all these, ha!

After the second batch was done and delivered to my sweet customers, I had yet another round of orders come in — again, much to my surprise and delight!

All in all, I think I’ve made somewhere close to 20 of these signs, which quite seriously helped fund our Christmas shopping this year. I still can’t even believe how quickly that little Target sign hack turned into such a blessing.

All that to say — snatch those puppies up before they’re gone! Then use your many crafty talents to spruce them up a bit and voila! Christmas presents. ;)

Edited to add:

If there aren’t any “Joy” signs left at your store, you can still use the wood backing from the “Merry”, “Peace” or “Noel” signs… I tried it out and it’s pretty easy to pull out the words and replace them with your own words or names using floral or thin copper wire. Have fun!

Hello dears! I have some more great Dollar Tree finds from a recent trip. This time, it’s all craft supplies!

Adorable floral fabric tape — makes my heart go pitter patter.

I was very impressed with the selection of arts and crafts supplies for kids (…aaaaand adults who have no shame in their crafting game). That assortment of modeling clay! ONE DOLLAR for all those colors. I mean, I have no idea what to do with it, but I couldn’t resist. We’ll figure it out. I bought the beads and thread for Maddie to make some friendship bracelets.

Pom poms — again, with the no plan or purpose for these things. Ideas?

My recent tutorial for these Easy Floral Letters used flowers I bought on this shopping trip. I didn’t find ALL of these flowers there, but most of them! Those sunflowers, large hot pink and purple flowers… nice sized bunches for a buck. You really can’t beat it.

Have you found anything great at your dollar store lately? Let us all know in the comments!

A few weeks ago, I was at my local Dollar Tree and I found some surprisingly nice looking fake flowers. I grabbed up a few bunches for crafty purposes, naturally! This weekend, Maddie and I got to work on a cute idea I’ve seen floating around for a while now — floral monograms!

It’s a very simple project that only took about half an hour. It was great to spend some time with my girl and give her a chance to have some creative say in how her “M” looked.

Here’s what you need:

A variety of fake flowers — I purchased mine at The Dollar Tree. (Wasn’t in the mood to make felt flowers, to be perfectly honest, but that is another adorable option!)

3D Paper Mache Letter

Exacto Knife

Hot Glue

Felt (optional, but helpful)

Here’s what you do:

Use your exacto knife to carefully cut out the front of your letter, leaving it hollow.

Trace and cut out felt to fit in your letter, then glue it inside. It’s okay if it is too big or too small — no one will see it. The felt should help with keeping the flowers in place. Another layer or two would help add a little height if you are using smaller flowers.

Choose your flower arrangement and start gluing!

Voila! They turned out pretty cute, I have to say.

Maddie loves her creation and it fits right in with her uber girly decor. ;)

And we had to make one for Roo Boo too. She couldn’t care less, but I love it. :)

“But… why?” you ask. That’s kind of what I’m asking myself right about now. Would you buy this thing? I just saw it was $3.74 and you can’t honestly expect me to pass up an amazingly rando purchase such as this for a steal like that, can you? Target has so many little weirdly awesome things that I so easily get sucked into purchasing. I mean, I just BARELY made it out of there without buying this little gold mouse wearing a party hat:

I think I’ll test the rhino head in Ruthie’s room to see if it weirds her out or not. If she approves, I will consider this a successful random purchase! Either way, I will definitely be pulling a Godfather and putting it in someone’s bed. Will follow up on this soon. I know this is riveting, news-worthy information right here and I don’t want to keep the world biting their nails in anticipation.

I’ve been noticing that the Dollar Tree has been surprisingly on point with some items lately. Today, I stopped by to pick up a few hair things and saw some blog-worthy deals…

I LOVE makeup organization! Like, a lot. These are obviously not the most amazing quality plastic boxes in the universe, but when I saw them I immediately started dreaming of how my lipstick collection would look all perfectly lined and stacked and I got lost in the wonder of it all. You could use them for a jillion other things I’m sure, but I just happen to think makeup, makeup brushes, hair accessories and all my paint brushes. Really good deal there!

I noticed a few months ago that my store started carrying these little framed art prints. They come out with new designs every so often and I have to say, for a buck, they’re not bad! If you’re looking to create a gallery wall, or need some art for your bathroom, nursery, etc., check it out!

(ignore my nub thumb)

Pretty cute!

They also had a great Easter section — a lot of cute things for making a basket. And the fake flower selection is superb, if I may say so. I just happen to be on the lookout for certain things when I’m in a crafty mood, so when I see a big pretty colorful selection of flowers for $1 a bunch, it makes my heart go pitter patter. Wreaths, hair clips, centerpieces, so many possibilities.

I hope you all can find some fun stuff at your local dollar stores! Do any of you have any other good finds to share?